All the rivers seek the sea as their monarch.
It rules because its gift is to be lower.
Therefore
To rule over people
You must reach a pitch below theirs. 5
To lead people
You must let them precede.
Therefore
Sages are above people but don’t weigh them down.
They take the lead but don’t get in people’s way. 10
Thus the whole world never tires of praising them.
Because they don’t contend
There isn’t anyone who can contend with them.
***
NOTES
lines 1 and 2: More literally, “The reason why rivers and seas can be king to the hundred valleys is because they are skilled at lowering themselves. Thus they can be king to the hundred valleys.”
lines 1–5: Ruling by being lower is the focus of poem 61 and is referred to in poem 68.
lines 12 and 13: These lines also appear in poem 22.
COMMENTARY
Laozi starts poem 66 with a fundamental truth: humility confers power. The false, aggressive, instant-gratification power of ruling by exalting yourself only weighs down others and gets in their way; thus it is doomed to fail. When you stop wanting others to exalt you, you’ll earn their spontaneous hymns of praise – as poem 39 observes, The ones who merit praise the most / Are the ones who need it the least. And at the heart of this freedom from want is non-action (see Introduction section IV.3). Here the reference takes the form of non-contention in the last two lines, which look back to the opening two lines, also a veiled allusion to non-action: As poem 61 points out, To be still is to make yourself lower – through non-action, the lower attains Dao and therefore succeeds.
Links To:
The Classic of Dao and De by Laozi: Contents
For more on Daoism, see:
Film Dreams: Frank Capra
Music: KALW Radio Show #3, Ancient China in 20th-Century Music
Music: SFCR Radio Show #8, Daoism in Western Music, part 1
Music: SFCR Radio Show #9, Daoism in Western Music, part 2
NICOLE V. GAGNÉ 